Hong Kong Nursing Clinical Areas
Good Clinical Practices
Offering lifestyle advice is a good clinical practice according to Blair and Church (2006 p. 6), all health care professionals must provide simple advice to patients that needs it. Lifestyle is a significant determining factor of chronic disease and the decrease of longevity. Providing advice on the diet and lifestyle change of an individual is worth the endeavor, although a number of patients fail to make amendments regarding their way of life, there are still patients that follow the health workers’ advice and become more conscious on their diet and begin to exert effort on their physique. Simple medications such as changing the diet to fruits and vegetables, eating whole-grains, decrease the intake of fat and start doing exercise must be given. Aside from giving recommendations the health professional must check the progress of the patient to encourage continuing their lifestyle change.
Respecting the right of the patient to undergo a clinical procedure is a good clinical practice a nurse must observed according to the Nursing Council of Hong Kong (2006), It is the principal ethical principle that each and every nurse must observe. The patient has a legal right to make decisions regarding on the procedures that will be done to his or her body. Thus, in delivering care for the patients, the nurse must have the legal and ethical responsibility to gain consent from the patient. A care and treatment without a patient’s consent will have the liability.
The End-of-Life care is another good clinical practice according to the Nursing Council of Hong Kong; it is a fundamental part of care the health workers particularly the nurses must provide. The patients with progressive diseases experience disruption on their physiological, social, mental and spiritual life, the nurse must address the needs of the patients to alleviate their discomfort. The different cultural backgrounds of the patient must be taken account by the nurse and make the patient’s home or ward efficient as possible in order to facilitate a peaceful closure in life.
Health Assessment is an essential and a good clinical practice, (NCHK, 2006) it is a process in which a nurse uses critical thinking in order to collect, validate, analyze and synthesize the gathered information so that the health status of an individual, family and community will be determined. It provides the basis for quality intervention and nursing care. It also determines the needs, clinical problems, patients’ response to health problems and intervention.
The NCHK identified health promotion as a good clinical practice; it is the process of empowering the people to raise control over the determining factors of health. As a member of the health work force, the nurse plays a significant role in promoting health to the individuals, families and communities. The areas of action that a health worker must prioritize are: Building healthy public policy, creating an environment that supports the health, the communities must have strengthened actions for health, the personal skills of individuals must be developed and the health services in the community must be re-oriented.
Areas that needs improvement
Managing pain is one area that needs improvement. According to the Agency of Health Care and Policy Research (as cited in the book of Lumby and Picone, 2000, p. 4) less than 50% of the patients that undergone surgery have reported sufficient pain management in the post-operative period. A number of studies have recognized consistently the reasons for under treatment of pain and these are; knowledge deficits, erroneous beliefs and attitudes of the patients and health care professionals toward pain and pain relievers. Improvement on the knowledge of health practitioners such as doctors and nurses must be made since a number of literatures have cited this problem as the biggest factor on the inadequacy of pain treatment. And patients and family members must be provided education in using analgesic to remove the stigma of addiction in patients taking it.
According to the study of Long (2003, p. 280) the nurses must accept and implement the best practices that emerges nowadays. Quality improvement is a challenge for the fast paced world of the health sector and is often considered by health professionals as an addition on their workload. The quality of service on hospitals and clinics needs improvement, a number of illnesses such as mentioned above are not addressed by the health professional because of the lack of knowledge and by improving the quality of service which includes new information base from studies and the hospital area.
The health care and living conditions of the elderly are another area of nursing practice that needs improvement. According to Just, DeYoung and Van Dyk (1995, p.165) there is a considerable need to deliver adequate health services and housing for the elderly. The models of care for the elderly that allows then to age properly must be adapted by the nurses. As the elderly population increases the nurses must always adapt to new practices that promotes the proper care for the elders.
Ciliska, Dicenso and Cullum (1999, p.102) identified culture as one of the challenges that the nursing practice faces and needs improvement. Nurses don’t have the habit of asking questions and reading new studies and literatures. Studies and researches published in nursing journals are often written for other researchers and needs translation in order to deliver to diverse audiences. The nurses must undergo cultural change and must always inquire for new studies and read research literatures in order to find answers.
Twinn (2001, p.345) discussed the development of primary health care in Hong Kong as a challenge and needs improvement. There is a considerable need in education on cancer, HIV/AIDS and chronic health problems. There are favorable circumstances on the development of the primary health care such as professional autonomy, innovative approaches regarding clinical practice and the development of skills of health professionals. However it still needs improvement specifically on the management of uncertainty and development of evaluation systems that shows the positive effects of nursing interventions.
